The Day of The Locust by Nathanael West (1939, 168 pages)

The Day of the Locust of the Locust by Nathaniel West (1903 to 1940 - he died in a car wreck- real name Nathan Von Wallstein) is set in Hollywood among people drawn there by the motion picture industry. It is full of grotesque characters and somehow brought to my mind a Southern California version of the people in the stories of Flannery O'Connor.   It is second best to his sublime master work, Miss Lonely Heart (1933) which is one of the greatest of American novels.   

The central figure works as a set designer for a Hollywood studio but his passion is his in process work on a painting in the grand tradition of 19th century Spanish painters, a painting he calls The Burning of Los Angeles.   Everyone in this story is fatally flawed.  The only person of decent character, one Homer Simpson (I think the creators of the cartoon have acknowledged this source) is pretty much of a clueless idiot.  The novel has hookers, con men, Mexican cock fighting fans (there is a horrific scene of a cock fight which is kind of a metaphor for the lives of the people in the story), a trouble making dwarf among others.  

Southern California in 1939, America was just getting ready to go into W W Two and exit a terrible ten year economic depression, was kind of a magnet for the rootless, a new promised land.  There is a good bit of religious symbolism in the novel, from the title on.    It is a lot of fun to read and hilarious in places.   

I would suggest you first read Miss Lonely Heart and then if you like that read The Day  of the Locust.

I hope to read his other two novels, both also under 200 pages, one day.

The Day of the Locust is in the public domain and can be downloaded for free.  

Mel u

The Night

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West (1933, 147 pages)


This is a savage novel with the power to hurt 

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West (1903 to 1940-USA- he died in an automobile accident) is one of the very best 20st century American novels to expose directly the dark side of the American dream.   Harold Bloom includes it along with Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and  parts of Gravity's Rainbow as the only examples of the sublime in the American novel in the 20st century.   He also points out the very strong influence on The Crying of Lot 49  of Miss Lonelyhearts.  As soon as I read this, I saw it was true.

Parts of Miss Lonelyhearts are terrible, terrible in an old fashion way meaning terrifyingly deep and overwhelmingly sad.   It is about the preterite of New York City in the early 1930s.  

Miss. Lonelyhearts is really a man who writes an advise column for a New York City newspaper.   The letters he receives are desperate and heartbreaking.  They send him into a downward cycle of depression. He tries to escape this, we never learn his actual name, with three affairs, including one with the wife of a letter writer, and his deep belief in Jesus.  (If you are seeking help with a school assignment to avoid reading the book, I suggest you check the Wikipedia article.)   He ends up being invited to a dinner by one of his letter writers, a crippled man.  His wife tries to seduce him 

She tells her husband that he tried to rape her.

There are deep religious themes in this book, Harold Bloom (for whose opinion I have a lot of respect) says it is really a story about being Jewish in American ( West's real name was  Nathan von Wallenstein Weinstein.   The ending is very shocking and will keep me thinking for a long time.

I urge everyone to read this novel.   The letters will flabbergast you with their deep sadness and their beauty. The character of Miss Lonelyhearts is just brilliant.   This is a savage novel with the power to hurt its readers when they see their own lives in its pages.

West was also a Hollywood screen writer and wrote  three novels, none considered on a par with this one.  His second best work is considered to be The Day of the Locusts.  Ten or so of his screen plays were made into movies but I am not familiar with any of them.






Please share your experience with West with us.  This novel in the the public domain and can be downloaded for free.  You can also download it for $8.95 from Amazon.

Miss Lonelyhearts sounds heartbreaking,
I love it already-Carmilla-

Mel u